d twenty, and wore a head-dress of grasses and ears of
corn drooping over very black hair peppered with diamonds. With her long
lashes against cheeks white with that transparency of complexion which
characterizes women who have long led a cloistered existence, and a
little ill at ease in her Parisian clothes, she resembled less one who
had formerly been a woman of the harem than a nun who, having renounced
her vows, was returning into the world.

An air of piety, of extreme devoutness, in her bearing, a certain
ecclesiastical trick of walking with downcast eyes, elbows close to
the body, hands crossed, mannerisms which she had acquired in the very
religious atmosphere in which she had lived since her conversion and
her recent baptism, completed this resemblance. And you can imagine
with what ardent curiosity that worldly assembly regarded this quondam
odalisk turned fervent Catholic, as she advanced escorted by a man with
a livid countenance like that of some spectacled sacristan, Maitre
le Merquier, deputy of Lyons, Hemerlingue's man of business, who
accompanied the baroness whenever the baron "was somewhat indisposed,"
as on this evening.

At their entry into the second drawing-room, the Nabob came straight up
to her, expecting to see appear in her wake the puffy face of his old
comrade to whom it was agreed that he should go and offer his hand. The
baroness perceived him and became still whiter. A flash as of steel shot
from beneath her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, quivered, and, as
Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her step, carrying her head high and
erect, and letting fall from her thin lips an Arab word which no one
else could understand but of which the Nabob himself well appreciated
the insult; for, as he raised his head again, his tanned face was of the
colour of baked earthenware as it leaves the furnace. He stood for an
instant without moving, his huge fists clinched, his mouth swollen with
anger. Jenkins came up and rejoined him, and de Gery, who had followed
the whole scene from a distance, saw them talking together with
preoccupied air.

The thing was a failure. The reconciliation, so cunningly planned, would
not take place. Hemerlingue did not desire it. If only the duke, now,
did not fail to keep his engagement with them. This reflection was
prompted by the lateness of the hour. The Wauters who was to sing the
music of the Night from the _Enchanted Flute_, on her way home from her
theatre, had jus